What a CPA is
A CPA platform, or an Affiliate Network is a platform for advertisers and publishers that follows CPA payment model.
A CPA is a payment model for conversion actions, i.e., Cost Per Action. Unlike CPC (Cost Per Click) and CPM (Cost Per Impression) models, a CPA allows an advertiser to pay only for a definite action performed by a user. It may include buying a good, registering, signing up for a subscription, downloading an application.
The Way It Works
- An Advertiser creates an Offer and defines the following:
- Users' actions per which they are ready to pay a commission to a Publisher;
- The desirable target audience;
- The commission amount;
- The traffic source, including blogs, social networks, email newsletters, context or banner ads.
- Publishers or Ad Partners join the CPA network and select Advertisers' offers. They place an ad code on their own or side platforms and encourage their audience to carry out the actions from the offer.
- A CPA network tracks the conversions performed by the users, gratefully to the Publishers' efforts. Later on, it calculates the remuneration for the Publishers.
- Publishers get the remuneration for successful conversions. It can be a fixed price or a sum depending on the definite action and its profitability for the Advertiser.
Who This Product is Intended for
A CPA platform is an efficient tool for advertisers that allows them to pay per definite results. The product is the perfect fit for:
- Customized ad networks connecting advertisers to publishers from certain business spheres and providing ad inventory. They may customize their own CPA platform and improve affiliate program management.
- The business spheres not accepting any collaboration with side ad systems. They require their own ad products to promote their offers.
- Large content publishers striving to monetize their traffic and boost affiliate revenue.
- Large advertisers eager to brand their interface (White Label Solutions), directly manage their affiliate networks and optimize their payments for conversions.
| The Advantages of the Product | |
| — Optimizes ad campaigns, targeting, and analytics. — Supports any types of conversion actions, including the purchase of goods, filling in the form, subscribing to a newsletter, etc. — Provides detailed conversion and commission payment reports, and other efficiency metrics. — Offers a flexible adjustment system for affiliate programs in accordance with their needs. — Is horizontally scalable and highly fault tolerant. Each architecture component provides for the efficient use of server resources. — Corresponds to legislative acts and standards in personal data processing. | — Involves multi-layer commission payments. For instance, the first-layer commission is paid for the user’s registration in the system, whereas the second-layer commission is awarded for replenishing the balance. — Handles high load and is capable of processing a great amount of ad traffic, i.e., the time required for one request does not exceed 100 ms with over 100,000 bid requests per second. — Can be set up on both servers and Cloud solutions, such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc. — Possesses a built-in monitoring, notification, backup and data storage systems. — Applies contemporary data safety methods to protect the users from illegal access. |
The legislative acts and standards in personal data processing:
- The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from
25.05.2018 in the EU. - The California Consumer Privacy Act in California, the USA,
- APPI in Japan, PIPEDA in Canada, Australian Privacy Act, etc.
OrbitSoft Cases
Affiliate Solutions Inc.
Affiliate Solutions Inc. manages numerous content platforms and sells traffic according to the CPA model.
Our Goal
Previously, the company applied an ad SaaS platform and lost a certain part of their revenue as a commission for their operations. Nevertheless, a ready-made solution will never be customized. It is impossible to make amendments to it according to the peculiarities of the sphere or add new functions. The company approached OrbitSoft to develop an in-house solution.
Our Solution
We decided to develop a system from scratch by applying our own developments in the ad statistics, prediction and impressions in the form of modules.
- The first step we took was to assemble a team of 8 specialists, conduct requirements gathering and go through the design stage.
- Then we developed and aligned the interface and functionalities with our client. We designed certain functions, unavailable in ready-made systems, such as multi-layer commission payments.
- In 6 months we managed to develop, test and launch the system into commercial use.
The Outcomes
- In 2 months our client transferred all their commercial activity into the new system.
- The system was introduced at an international exhibition Gitex 2023.
- Currently, we are working on its further improvement, creating new system capabilities and maintaining it.
MobVital
An ad agency MobVital used the platform for selling and arbitraging the mobile traffic. The platform helped boost ad revenues and save time with the help of software optimization that direct the traffic to the most profitable campaigns.
Our Goal
The agency ventured out to develop their own system allowing the advertisers and partners to buy and sell the traffic and follow any payment model, including cost per impression, click and conversion. The agency required the assistance from a strong development team, experienced in the digital ad area. Thus, they approached OrbitSoft.
Our Solution
We based the new system on our in-house OrbitSoft Ad Server and implemented additional modules, according to our client’s requirements. The new system is capable of:
- Working with mobile websites and applications via SDK;
- Supporting the most popular types of ads, including native, full-screen, dialog, push, etc.
- Selling the traffic by following a wide range of models. App developers can follow CPM model, whereas advertisers can select either CPM, CPC or CPA.
We also created a unique optimization algorithm. It creates a dynamic probability model by applying the statistical data on ad impressions, clicks and conversions. The model predicts the load and events, for instance, an increased number of clicks and conversions. The algorithm transmits the estimation of click and conversion probability to the ad management system. Based on this data, the system makes a decision on which ad to place and which payment model to follow.
Our developers paid special attention to fault-tolerance and system recovery. At first, we integrated the system through the SDK for Android. Currently, we are working on integrating SDK for iOS and Windows.
The Outcomes
In the first couple of months after launch the system demonstrated its efficacy since the new system implementation gave the ad agency the opportunity to attract lots of advertisers and app developers. The optimization algorithm keeps on upgrading according to the latest data. This allows the system to always turn a profit.
